It is a good morning to come together, thank and worship our great God. Welcome to the worship here at First Presbyterian Church and we want to especially welcome you if you're visiting with us this morning and whether you're a visitor or a member of a like, if you can find the blue registration, friendship, register at one or the other side of the pew that one aisle or the other, pass that along, filled out and pass it back so we'll get a chance to get to know each other as we do that. Couple of important announcements, we've got several missions trips taking place this summer, people going out from our church with the gospel of Jesus Christ and there is one going on right now to Germany. So be in prayer for our German missions team and they will be there meeting with some of the missionaries that we support being involved in work with them and they'll be coming back on Friday. Sunday night services are going to start up on June 16th, you can make a note of that, put that on your calendar. Sunday night worship services will be led by Robert Rowe, Eric Parker and John Kraft who's the RUF campus minister at UTC and they will begin June 16th at 5 p.m. and we have another important announcement now by Dale Rairden who will come and tell us about something about God's Word. Would you like a free gift? That's what I was asking hundreds of students over at UTC as we were handing out free copies of God's Word, Gideon Bibles. And I'll never forget, one of the students said, oh it's too late for me, I said no it's never too late, he said oh yes it is. You know he and many others are why I enjoy going and share the gospel. It really is an encouraging opportunity for me being a part of the Gideon ministry. You know share God's Word and change lives. Those are the words that really sum up what the Gideon ministry means to me. As I and approximately 12 other members here in our church and their wives go out around the world including 300,000 other Gideons, we share God's Word and help to change lives. Of people here in Chadenuga and 195 countries around the world, being a part of this ministry has given me the opportunity and the encouragement to meet and to witness the people who I would have not otherwise come into contact. More importantly, my involvement in the Gideon ministry has allowed me to place Bibles in the hands of people in places where others cannot go, or maybe will not go. Just last year I was given an opportunity to go to Brazil and a team that I was with and also the local Gideons gave out 1.1 million copies of Testaments just like this in a little over two weeks. You know I was blessed to have many, many opportunities to witness one-on-one with people and sharing the excitement of winning others to a saving knowledge of Jesus Christ. See before I became a Gideon, I would not have been able to pass out a Bible or witness to complete strangers, maybe in a hospital, maybe in a school, maybe in a nursing home, or anywhere else in our community. Now it's just a pure joy to share Christ along with my wife, Sherry, and other fellow Gideons and their wives. You know, I can credit my Christian growth in the past decade because of my active involvement with the Gideon ministry. Did you know that out of the approximate 7 billion people in the world, it's estimated that about 5 billion do not know our Lord Jesus Christ at their lost. Now that 5 billion, they are dying at the rate of approximately a little over one every second, a little over one every second. The short 3 minutes that I'm speaking with you here this morning, there have been 200 people that are lost and have died and gone to hell. You know what excites me through this mystery is I am fulfilling God's commandment to go out throughout the world and to share Christ with others, and that includes right here in Chadnoga. You know, if God has touched your heart with this message, I'll be out in the connector. I'd love to share with you a little bit more about the ministry and how it might change your life or possibly God willing the life of others. Thank you, Tim, for allowing me to come and share about what the ministry, my involvement in this ministry has meant to me and how we have led others to Christ through the personal handing out of Bibles one at a time. May God bless each of you for your prayers and your support for this ministry, for this ministry how it is needed all around the world, and especially here in Chadnoga. Thank you and God bless you. Thank you, Dale. I remember when I was in the 5th grade and received Gideon's Bible and how meaningful that was to me at the time and continues to be, I got only knows the impact that had on me, I cherished that for years. I said in the early service as we talked about this, that brief period where they gave out the revised Berkeley version of the Bible and somebody in between services said, you got the Charles Barkley version of the New Testament and I know, no, it was obscure but it wasn't that obscure translation but thank you for your ministry and the ministry of the Gideons and now let's take some time and prepare our hearts to worship God. The time is drawing light. Keep your lights. The time is drawing light. Keep your lights. The time is drawing light. Children are doing their work.
The time is drawing light. Keep your lights. The time is drawing light. Keep your lights. Do you please stand for our call to worship? You may notice at the top of our bulletin to all who are spiritually weary and seek rest, to all who mourn and long for comfort, to all who struggle and desire victory, to all who sin and need a savior, to all who are strangers and want fellowship, to all who hunger and thirst after righteousness, and to all who will come. This church opens wide her doors and offers welcome in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. I welcome you in the name of the Lord for our call to worship from Psalm 62. For God alone on my soul wait in silence for my hope is from him. He only as my rock and my salvation, my fortress, I shall not be shaken. On God rest my light rock, my refuge is God. Trust in him at all times, hope people, pour out your heart before him as a refuge for us. Father, we come in the name of Jesus Christ in the power of the Holy Spirit. You've awakened us, you've gathered us here together, certainly a sign of being under your blessing. And so now Holy Spirit, with eyes of faith may we see Jesus Christ, may we worship him while we have breath in our lungs, for we adore you Lord Christ. We make this our morning prayer, a prayer of adoration in the name of our great king, our mighty fortress Jesus Christ. Amen.
For God alone on my soul wait in silence for my hope is from him as a refuge for us. Father, we come in the name of Jesus Christ in the power of the Holy Spirit. The Lord teaches us to not trust ourselves, to transfer the trust we have in ourselves to placing our trust in the Lord. And the process of even during our worship service is a process of praising the Lord, of placing our hope on him. He's the object of our faith. We place our trust in him. And so our affirmation of faith today is the Apostles Creed, something that many of us say over and over in our hearts on a daily basis. Something that allows us and encourages us to transfer the trust we have in ourselves into the trust we have in God. And so Christian, I ask you, what do you believe? I believe in God the Father Almighty, maker of heaven and earth, and in Jesus Christ his only son, our Lord, who was conceived by the Holy Ghost, born of the Virgin Mary, suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, dead and buried. He descended into hell, the third day he rose again from the dead, he ascended into heaven, and siteth on the right hand of God the Father Almighty, from thence he shall come to judge the quick in the dead. I believe in the Holy Ghost, the Holy Catholic Church, the communion of saints, the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body, and the life everlasting. You may be seated. Once again, we return to Psalm 51, the Psalms are quite often used, the people of God for worship, they are cries from the heart, cries of joy, cries of confession. Have mercy on me, O God, according to your steadfast love, according to your abundant mercy, blood out my transgressions. Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin. For I know my transgressions, and my sin is ever before me against you, you only have I sinned and done what is evil in your sight, so that you may be justified in your words and blameless in your judgment. David wrote those words after a long time of rebellion. He could have said this to the Lord months before, but he waited. He waited. He endured the heavy hand of the Lord until his spirit was dried up, if you're waiting. Now's the day. Now's the day to agree with God to confess your sin, and to have the Holy Spirit lift this burden off of you and place it on the Lord. So quietly, humbly, honestly, confess your sin to the Lord. Father, if you kept a record of sins, no one could stand before you, but with you, there is forgiveness. Therefore, we come to you in worship, and we stand in awe of you, and we run towards your presence, because we know that you delight in us, that you don't begrudgingly forgive our sins, but because of the lavish gift that you've given to us in Jesus, in his perfect life and his death, that paid the penalty for our disobedience. You've made it possible for us not only to be, for our sins to be blotted out, but for you to delight in us, and that we would know what it means to be delighted in by you as your children. So we thank you for that, and we pray that as we do experience the gift of your grace and forgiveness, that you would do just as your scripture says that we would learn to say no to sin, and that we would run to you and to live for you, not because we have to earn your approval, but because we already have it. And so we come to you as a great and loving Father, and we pray the prayer, Father, that your Son taught us to pray, saying, our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name, thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors, and lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil, for thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Amen. As our children are dismissed for our children's worship, let's stand and greet each other in the grace of Jesus Christ. We do have a Father who cares deeply for us, and so let's go to Him now in prayer. Father, we come to you knowing that you are our heavenly Father that cares deeply for the needs and the desires that we have. We come with the needs of many in our church. We mention just a few. We pray for Ellie Zarabi to continue to be with her and heal her and encourage and help her family. We pray for Virginia Turner with struggling with pneumonia that you would heal her, the Ireland, that her physical therapy would go well. We pray for Norma Cliner that you would be with her and her variety of physical ailments that she has and things that are preventing her from getting the surgery she needs. We pray that you would heal her and many, many others in our congregation and our church that are struggling with a variety of physical medical problems that you would be close to them, that you would be near them, that you would heal them, that you would comfort them, and that you would work through these difficulties in their lives. We pray also for those who are struggling in other ways, maybe financially or emotionally, or have just a variety of problems that they are dealing with in their lives, that they would know that you are present, that you will never leave them, that you will never forsake them. Father, we thank you so much for all the gifts that you give to us, the gift of your Holy Spirit, the gift of fellowship, the gift of being able to worship together this morning, and we thank you, and we want to worship you as we give back to you a portion of what you have given to us, the ties and offerings this morning. We pray all of these things in Jesus' name, Amen. The choir that was one of the most powerful songs I think I've ever heard or read, you please stand for our scripture reading. You know our bulletin is designed not only for our worship on Sunday but as a guide for you throughout the week, as you worship the Lord. I would strongly encourage you to meditate on the words that we just had the privilege of hearing, quite gripping and powerful. Our scripture lesson today is found in the book of Deuteronomy, chapter 28, Deuteronomy 28. I'll read the first 21 verses. And if you faithfully obey the voice of the Lord your God, being careful to do all his commandments that I command you today, the Lord your God will set you high above all the nations of the earth. And all these blessings shall come upon you and overtake you if you obey the voice of the Lord your God. Blessed or blessed shall you be in the city and blessed shall you be in the field. Blessed shall be the fruit of your womb and the fruit of your ground and the fruit of your cattle, the increase of your herds and the young of your flock. Blessed shall be your basket and your needing bowl. Blessed shall you be when you come in and blessed shall you be when you go out. The Lord will cause your enemies who rise against you to be defeated before you. They shall come out against you one way and flee before you seven ways. The Lord will command the blessing on you in your barns and all that you undertake. And he will bless you in the land that the Lord your God has given you. The Lord will establish you as a people holy to himself as he has sworn to you if you keep the commandments of the Lord your God and walk in his ways. And all the peoples of the earth shall see that you are called by the name of the Lord and they shall be afraid of you. And the Lord will make you abound in prosperity in the fruit of your womb and in the fruit of your livestock and in the fruit of your ground within the land that the Lord swore to your fathers to give you. The Lord will open to you his good treasury, the heavens, to give the rain to your land in its season and to bless all the work of your hands. And you shall lend it to many nations but you shall not borrow. And the Lord will make you the head and not the tail and you shall only go up and not down if you obey the commandments of the Lord your God which I command you today. Be careful to do them and if you do not turn aside from any of the words that I command you today to the right hand or to the left to go after other gods to serve them. But if you will not obey the voice of the Lord your God or be careful to do all his commandments and his statutes that I command you today, then all these curses shall come upon you and overtake you. Cursed shall you be in the city and cursed shall you be in the field, cursed shall be your basket and your needing bowl, cursed shall be the fruit of your womb and the fruit of your ground, the increase of your herds and the young of your flock, cursed shall you be when you come in and cursed shall you be when you go out. The Lord will send on you curses, confusion and frustration and all that you undertake to do until you are destroyed and perish quickly on account of the evil of your deeds because you have forsaken me. The Lord will make the pestilence stick to you until he has consumed you off the land that you are entering to take possession of it. This is the word of the Lord. You may be seated. Well it took some courage and faith to say thanks be to God after that reading, didn't it? Blessings and curses on the people of God. When my son Jordan was just a little guy I was walking along with him one day he's about three years old I was holding his hand and we were walking down the sidewalk in Charlotte, North Carolina. And I just picked him up, hugged him and squeezed down him for a while. This is Jordan, I love you so much. I'm just crazy about you. You mean everything to me as your father. I'm so proud of you. I look forward to our years together as we grow up together. I was just a young man myself at that point. And as I was about to place Jordan back down on a sidewalk and keep walking, I just looked over, I saw the street alongside us. I said, Jordan, don't ever run out into the streets. It's very dangerous. You could be hit by a car. You could be hurt. You could even be killed. Please Jordan, be very, very careful not to run into the street. A few weeks later, my son Jordan was playing in the front yard. I was there with him and his ball got past him and headed out into the street. And Jordan started headed that direction. My children know I'm not a yellow. I know some people at home, they kind of scream at each other. Things get going at the dinner table and things escalate. I've just never been much of a screamer or a yellow. And so as Jordan was headed to the street, I simply said, Jordan, we just stopped. Turn around and came back. Today is an opportunity for some of us, whether young or old, to hear God's voice. He loves us. We're his people. He speaks to his people in ways to gather their attention, to give them promises of blessing and to give them warning. I don't know which we need to hear today, possibly both. But as we look at this passage, I wanted to frame it up for us throughout the entire book of Deuteronomy because the entire book of Deuteronomy is basically set up as a treaty, as a covenant commitment, a covenant commitment between God and his people. And part of the covenant commitment that we have in God's word is the idea that there are curses for people who don't follow the conquering king. And there are blessings for people who do follow the conquering king. And so I do not know how familiar you are with ancient Near East covenants. Maybe you cut your teeth on ancient Near East covenants. You know, Rich, maybe that's something you didn't let's go. I don't know. But the book of Deuteronomy is organized according to an old covenant. What's a covenant? A covenant is an unbreakable commitment. Now, you might think, well, what do you mean unbreakable? I'll just walk away from it. No, no, no. You can't just walk away from it. It's like my son, Jordan. Even if he were to rebel against me, he's still my son. He might dress differently than I would think. He might date someone I don't approve of. He might do things that he knows I do not approve of. And the Lord doesn't approve of, but he's still my son. It's unbreakable. There's nothing he can do to stop being my son. And there's nothing I can do to stop being his father. And so when you look at a covenant between God and his people, it frames up the understanding of blessings and curses, doesn't it? Let's think a little bit about the treaty, if you will. I'll give you a six-part explanation of that. Then I want to race into the blessings. The first aspect of this treaty between a conquering king known as the Susserin, and a subservient or conquered king known as the Vassal, is that the conquering king gives this historical prologue. It explains to them what has happened historically that has put them in the position of being leader over the Vassal. And if you know Deuteronomy very well, and as you think about it, you're like, you know what? That was the first four chapters of Deuteronomy, wasn't it? The first four chapters of Deuteronomy was this historical prologue that explained the journeys of the people. And then the second part of the treaty is they have a conquering king is identified. Let's just thumb over in Deuteronomy chapter 5 verse 6 so that you can see it. I'm not going to walk us all the way through the book this way. You might want to spend some of your Sabbath day this afternoon working this through. But in Deuteronomy chapter 5 and verse 6, what do we find? We find the Lord saying, I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery. In other words, I'm the Susserin in this relationship. I bring my sovereign rule in your life because I not only made you, but when you were in captivity, I delivered you. I took you out of the hand of Egypt. I am the Susserin and you are the Vassal right there in Deuteronomy 5.6. The third point of this treaty, or covenant, if you will, is that there's a series of promises and stipulations. And that takes us from chapter 5 verse 7 all the way through the end of chapter 26. And you remember as we were preaching our way through there, as we were thinking, wow, those are some amazing stipulations that they had. I didn't preach all the way through that section. I kind of hopped over a few of those, but as you were reading it, surely you were thinking, I can't believe they said that in the Bible. That's amazing. There were stipulations to separate the people away from the other nations. But then, fortunately, we have blessings and curses and that brings us right to where we are today. We're in blessings and curses. We're in this section that fulfill this aspect of the treaty that says, look, if you do what I tell you to do, I'll provide this. If you don't do what I tell you to do, this is what's going to happen to you. And so it's a clear understanding, clear communication. It moves on and next week we'll talk about covenant renewal. In fact, next week, everyone who's a member of our church, I'm going to ask you to renew your covenant vows. I've placed in the back of the bulletin our membership questions that we ask each and every person who joins our church. And I'm going to ask you, although a number of you are new members, I saw the cooks back there a minute ago. You know, a lot of you are new members, but I want you to know that I would like each member of our church to step forward and to say, I would like to renew my vows before the Lord, my commitment to the Lord into this church. I'll talk about that next week as we head toward chapter 30. And then the end of Deuteronomy talks about this transition of leadership. And so now let's look at the blessings of being obedient to God. Those are found in verses 1 through 14 of chapter 28, and they're listed straight out there. They lay out in such a way that it lets you know that there's an order. There's a sense of purpose to this. There's this thought that if God's hand is on your life and you will be Him, good things are going to happen to you. You're going to be blessed. What does it mean to be blessed? It means to be happy. It means to be under God's blessing. It means to be in right relationship with God and right relationship with others. Remember when I defined Shalom for us a few weeks ago? This idea of alignment. This idea of alignment so that everyone's at peace, mom and dad are getting along. Brothers and sisters are getting along. Brothers and sisters are getting along with mom and dad. Mom and dad and brothers and sisters enjoy going over to the grandparents house to hang out. When we do things together we have a wonderful time. We're happy. We converse. We're not angry with each other. When we have dinner at Thanksgiving we all pile in around the table and it's great. And we're so glad to be here. There's this sense of blessing in the overwhelming presence of God's Shalom. Things are in alignment. When I was in high school one time I had something come out of alignment while I was playing in a football game. One of my fingers went sideways. I don't know if you've ever experienced that. I hope you haven't. It's been hurting the last couple days as a matter of fact. But I had just thrown a pass over the middle and a big defensive tackle had his helmet right there and he hit my index finger and my index finger went sideways. It went a different direction. And I kind of looked over at the coach and held it up and he waved at me and I ran toward him and I thought he's going to give me a little help, probably figure out how to rush me to the hospital. Instead he grabbed my finger and said 42 power pass. 42 power pass. And I'm walking back to the huddle like what just happened. You know. And of all things he calls a pass play which obviously it probably didn't make much difference with my ability. But this sense of blessing is this sense of alignment. This sense that I am right with God. I'm right with my family. I'm right with my neighbor and the Lord is pouring out blessing on me. He's prospering me. Now what's very dangerous in this situation right now and I hope none of you have gone there. But some of you are thinking hey wait, wait, wait, what's the deal here is the deal that I'm really good and then God blesses me and I just keep gaining more and more and more stuff. No, no, I don't want you to miss it. Some people have coined a term that's extremely offensive to me. It's called a prosperity gospel. It's the idea of I do this for God. He'll do that for me. Which is not biblical at all. They've taken a passage like this completely out of context. And they've extrapolated this into our culture in a way that doesn't understand the structure of the Bible. It doesn't understand our relationship with God. And so the idea of being really, really good so that God gives me more stuff is really not a biblical idea. It's not something that holds truth or scripture. Otherwise, guess what? Jesus must not have been a very good follower of God because he died a poor man. And what about the Apostle Paul? When you think about his life, travel all over the known world. He died a horrible death in Rome. What about the Apostles? All the Apostles were executed other than the Apostle John. And so you can't extrapolate Old Testament principles in a way that make them perfectly, you can't just fast forward and throw them into your life. Remember, the idea is that these people have already been gathered to the Lord. He's already delivered them out of Egypt. He's carrying them in their arms. But God speaks to them in this way because Israel was filled with those who didn't believe in God. Rome is 9-6, said very clearly, the Apostle Paul makes this point. He says, all Israel is not Israel. What's he saying? All Israel had Jewish blood but not all Israel had faith in Yeshua. They didn't have faith in the promises that a Messiah would come. And so even though they were Israelites, they weren't believers. Just like in our church this morning, I hope that every single one of you believe in the Lord Jesus Christ. But more than likely, there are many in our congregation this morning who don't believe in the Lord Jesus Christ. You're not believers. And so God uses his word to challenge us and he says to us, look, if you love me, you will follow me. You're my child, act like it. And over the time in our lives, we find out, do we really believe in the Lord? Do we have family characteristics of being a person who walks with God? Right now, maybe you have teenagers at home or young adults at home. And you're looking at them and they're looking at you. And you're trying to figure out the answer to this question right now. You're like, hey, you're living a life that doesn't reflect our family's values. So are you in or are you out? And if they answer honestly, quite often they say, I'm not sure. I'm trying to figure that out. But time will tell. And one of the ways God windows his people is he sends curses on those who are not obedient to him. And that's found in the second part of this chapter of chapter 28. As you look at God's word, you see that the first part of chapter 28 deal with all these blessings. And blessings are related to obedience. Verse one, if you faithfully obey the voice of the Lord your God. But then when we turn to curses in verse 15, but if you will not obey the voice of the Lord your God. And so not obeying the Lord's voice will bring his curse upon you. It'll bring the curse. And if you look at it and I was very careful to not read certain portions of this scripture in our pulpit. I think even in our depraved culture there are phrases in some of these scriptures that are so repulsive that I can't speak them publicly. The things that people do to one another is hideous. It's almost beyond imagination. And I know many of you read through these chapters as I asked you to do to get a sense of these curses. And how curses mean that you're not in alignment with God. You're out of joint. And you're not in alignment with your family. You're out of joint. And you're having a difficult time making sense of life. And so God sends curses on you. And he sends curses on you. And I want to work our way through verse 64 to verse 68 here at the end of chapter 28 in Deuteronomy. There are a couple of keywords that will help us understand what a curse does. Verse 64, and the Lord will scatter you. Okay, think about this. He's going to scatter. If blessing means we're happily together, scatter means you're spread out. You're by yourself. There are people who chose not to come worship with us this morning. They're scattered. They're away from the Lord. Maybe they're just taking a vacation, right? They're down in Florida right now, or they're traveling. They're on a mission trip in Germany. But there are those who chose perfectly, who chose purposefully not to gather with us this morning. And somewhere in their brain, they have to be thinking, do I really enjoy fellowshiping with the Lord and with other people in worship? One of the marks of a cursed person is that they're scattered by God. They're scattered among all the peoples. Now stop for a minute. Think about the history of the people of God in the Old Testament. They went forward from here. They were in the promised land. They ended up under Saul and David and Solomon being a gathered harmonious people. And then what happened? Divided kingdom. And then where did they go after the divided kingdom? They were scattered in an evil nation, a godless pagan nation. And what about the Jews throughout the ages? They've been scattered over the face of the earth. And so as you look at this passage, you can see it's quite prophetic. He'll scatter you among all peoples from one end of the earth to the other. And there you shall serve other gods. You're not just scattered. You're serving other gods of wood and stone, which neither you nor your fathers have known. And among these Nates and Jews shall find no respite. Now there's no place you're going to find rest for the soul of your foot. But the Lord will give you there a trembling heart and failing eyes and a languishing soul. Now for in land there's no rest. Your heart is troubled. Verse 66, your life shall hang in doubt before you. Night and day you shall be in dread and have no assurance of your life. In the morning you shall say, if only it were evening. And in the evening you shall say, if only it were morning. Because of the dread that your heart shall feel and the sights that your eyes shall see. And the Lord will bring you back in ships to Egypt, a journey that I promise that you should never make again. And there you shall offer yourselves for sale to your enemies as male and female slaves, but there will be no buyer. They can't even return to the position of a slave. They will long to be employed as a slave. They will long to be a part of a family working in the field among other slaves and no one will even purchase them. They're worse off than they were in Egypt. They're completely rejected. No one will even purchase them. No one will employ them. They're completely destitute. This is the sign of a people or a person who's under the curse of God. They're alone. They're struggling. People who choose twisted paths will have a torturous journey. It takes our minds eye right back to Psalm 1, doesn't it? And how the two paths are set before us. There's a hopelessness that creeps into the heart of a person who's under the curse of God. There's a humility that must be followed with a repentance if you're under the curse of God. Hopefully, God and His mercy and grace would bring hope to the hopeless. I know that He did that for me. When I was a freshman in college, I was hopeless. Other than in academics and athletics, I had no hope in my life. And then I met the Lord. And He turned me to a true hope. I could place my hope in Him. When you think about trying to fulfill the law, it can be overwhelming for you. In fact, it should be overwhelming. It should be overwhelming for the non-believer and for the believer. To have a sense of hopelessness overwhelmed with the thought, I could never do this. I could never fulfill the law. Unfortunately, according to John Piper, much of American evangelicalism is applying a light medicine to a deep and pervasive disease. We see a person with a tumor on their arm and we think we can simply cut off the tumor and things are okay, not knowing that it's not simply an external issue. It's a systemic problem. That tumor is forming on your arm because you have cancer in your blood. And so, you can go along trying to remove tumors from your arm. But all the while, you need new blood. You need new hope. You need a hope that comes from outside of us. We need God to be the fulfiller of this covenant. And what does Jesus say in Matthew 5? He says, I didn't come to abolish the law. I came to fulfill it. Jesus, he didn't knock the old law away and say, hey, we're starting over. No, he completely fulfilled the law. He fulfilled the covenant promises that God placed on his people. Jesus stepped in and completely obeyed the Lord. The Lord God. That's why we're under God's blessing, people of God. And not only did Jesus step forward to fulfill the law, but he became our righteousness in 2 Corinthians chapter 5 verse 21. And it says for our sake, God made him to be sin so that in him we might become the righteousness of God. You see what's happened? God fulfilled his own covenant requirements through the work of Jesus Christ. That's what we mean when we talk about the covenant of grace or the new covenant. Christ fulfilled the old covenant and then applied the benefits of that fulfillment to us by grace. That's the new covenant. That's why we rest in him. That's why we follow him because we want to because the spirits worked in us. It's a sign of rebellion to return to slavery. It's a sign of rebellion to reverse the field and to return to the very slavery from which Christ delivered us. It's wrong for us to do that. If you are a rebellious teenager, I would plead with you to consider the consequences of your rebellion. Is your rebellion hurting others as much as it's hurting you? Quite often teenagers rebel against their parents, but really, though as parents we suffer, a teenager is going to suffer more than we will. They're going to incur consequences from which they may not recover. Our focus needs to be on the Lord. Our focus needs to be on obeying him because we belong to him. We need to know he holds us in his arms and he tells us that he loves us. And when he says to not run into the street, it is for our own good. Our attention should be first and foremost on the Lord Jesus Christ. He's our creator. He's the fulfiller of the law and therefore the covenant promises. And he's our righteousness. He's our great king. He's our soucerin king. And simultaneously the vassal in that he fulfilled all the demands of God's law. And I was thinking of a way to help us to focus on this. And over the past couple of weeks as I've been thinking on it, I noticed something. I noticed that when someone has their cell phone, they look at it all the time. Like, did somebody text me? Did somebody call me? Did someone send me a picture? Who's carrying about me right now? And I got to think, you know, if we can look at our phone all the time in the power of the spirit, we could look at the Lord all the time too. Every time you glance at that thing, think about the Lord. Think about his goodness to you. Think about his blessing. Think about not just the person who texted you and you're so excited you're going to have lunch tomorrow. But think about the Lord. Who is your righteousness? Let's pray together. Father, we come before you this morning and we thank you for the beauty of your word. Lord, we're back in Deuteronomy. We're in a book written a long, long time ago by a guy who's been dead for thousands of years. And yet, we are still in this covenant relationship with you because it's unbreakable. It's unbreakable, Lord. Someone who walks away from you still will have covenant obligations. They will still be winnowed at the day of judgment by Jesus Christ. You are a God who is both kind and severe. You are a God who will demand of us on that day. And Lord Jesus Christ, as John the Baptist spoke of you, that you will pick up the winnowing fork and you will lift up the wheat and the chaff will fall. I pray a Holy Spirit that you would lift us with Jesus and as we are sifted, we would find ourselves to be His and His alone. Carry us along Holy Spirit for your glory, for the glory of God the Father, God the Son, and God the Spirit, and for our own good. Father, for those who are in need of repentance, I pray, oh God, that today would be the day. They come to their senses in the power of your Spirit and that they would stop trying to lance their boils and cut off their timbers. And they would ask for the power of the Holy Spirit to give them the blood of Jesus, to give them a new life, to give them a new heart. I pray all this in the name of Jesus Christ and all God's people said together, amen. Would you please stand for the benediction? Chapter 27 of Deuteronomy goes through a series of statements and the statements are then answered by the people who say, amen. Amen means let it be, may it be, may it be true, let it be true, make it right, make this happen. And so next week I'll ask you to consider that as you renew your membership boughs. Now you will be able to look at those five questions which are on the back of your bulletin and think them through the first two questions dealing specifically with your justification before God. And the next three questions dealing specifically with your sanctification until God's return. And so may God in his kindness help us as a congregation to follow him as he carries us along. And now hear this good word. May the Lord bless you and keep you. May the Lord cause his face to shine upon you and be gracious to you. May the Lord lift up his countenance upon you and give you peace right now as well as in the life everlasting. Amen.